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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 

FINE ART 

O F 

LIVING 



MARY RUSSELL MILLS 



Copyright, 1910 
THE FELLOWSHIP PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Los Angeles, California 






©Ci. A 253 901 



I 

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, OR REALITY ? 

Have faith! Life is not a tragedy. Perhaps 
there must come a time in the history of every 
soul when he questions as to whether it can be 
anything else. . 

For one thing, Nature seems so fierce and mer- 
ciless and can treat men, her oldest, most sym- 
pathetic and capable children, with cruel indiffer- 
ence. She engulfs them in seething waters, racks 
them with irremediable pains, burns them with 
fevers, wastes them with relentless consumptions, 
will not be entreated concerning them, and ap- 
pears indifferent to the nature of the services they 
would gladly render her and her children. And 
the same old tyrant brings to life and to the cer- 
tainty of suffering, multitudes who cannot, by 
any apparently possible means, find any path 
that leads out of the depths of distress. In these 
and many other cruel fashions she appears 
pleased to exhibit her power. There are aspects 
of her action that force us to feel that she can- 
not be trusted, despite all her fair show of beauty 
and benefit. 



"Beauteous is Earth, but all its forest-broods 
Plot mutual slaughter, hungering to live; 
Of sapphire are the skies, but when men cry, 
Famished, no drops they give." 

But man and his condition are worse than na- 
ture. We could almost forgive and trust that in 
which we do not recognize our own sort of con- 
sciousness, but it is hard to believe that justice 
is administered or received in many of the trans- 
actions of human society. Here are those whose 
material prosperity is builded of the wrecks of 
the hopes, ambitions and efforts of their fellows ; 
those who commit the grossest crimes under the 
sanction of law and reap in overflowing granaries 
and palaces the harvests of their robberies. Here 
are those who triumph because of brute strength 
— and there is brute strength of intellect as well 
as of body. Here are those who seem born for 
some great and fair destiny, and yet with some 
inherent fatal defects that lead them, inevitably 
and almost involuntarily, into the ways of shame 
and pain. Life has many a Macbeth who must 
be led on, both by external and internal influ- 
ences until he so shapes his own life that he will 
always be tortured by the ghosts which he has 
evoked into being; many a Hamlet, who, with 
all his young ardor and ingenuousness must 



pause where wretched disappointment and per- 
fidy fill the whole horizon of his world, and lose 
the faith in life which alone makes sanity; many 
a Francesca da Rimini, who, with that beauty 
and fragrance and confidingness of nature, that 
make the heart of earth's sweetest joys, loses her 
way, through the very tendencies that should 
have formed her directions to it. 

And there are private riddles that each one 
feels he ought to read and must read, and yet 
cannot; there are binding, galling chains of cir- 
cumstance that hold us fast; there are clouds 
that lower and darken and press and depress us ! 

"Be not mocked ! 
Life which ye prize is long-drawn agony: 
Only its pains abide; its pleasures are 
As birds which light and fly. 

"Ache of the birth, ache of the helpless days, 
Ache of hot youth and ache of manhood's prime; 
Ache of the chill gray years and choking death, 
These fill your piteous time. 

"Sweet is fond Love, but funeral-flames must kiss 
The breasts which pillow and the lips which cling; 
Gallant is warlike Might, but vultures pick 
The joints of chief and King. 

"Ask of the sick, the mourners, ask of him 
Who tottereth on his staff, lone and forlorn 
'Liketh thee life?' — these say the babe is wise 
That weepeth being born." 



But darker, more terrible, more tragical than 
all, is the fact that never, never can we reach 
our own ideals, never can we be in our own in- 
dividual lives that which we would. We can see 
him so clearly — that one who is too great to ever 
be less than perfect in kindness and gentleness 
and the most delicate considerations; that one 
who ever shines and glows with the sunlight of 
eternal cheer ; that one whose strength is greater 
than every burden, whose calmness overflows 
every vicissitude. And we know that one is the 
self we may be, and must be, and yet we never 
overtake him. We must always be crying out in 
anguish, "The good that I would, I do not: but 
the evil which I would not, that I do." This is 
the anguish that is greater than every other. We 
could bear any pain, and sing through any per- 
plexity, if only, — if only we could be good ! 

But the same characteristics that seem to 
prove life a tragedy also fit it to be called a com- 
edy. The tragical element is the failure to at- 
tain. We find so many hints and indirections 
and bold, broad-light evidences of the most 
boundless possibilities of goodness, beauty, per- 
fection, and yet such pitiful, heart-rending short- 
comings. And this is the essence of the comic, — 



"an honest or well-intended halfness; a non- 
performance of what is pretended to be per- 
formed, at the same time that one is giving loud 
pledges of performance." Produced for us in 
lighter shades and touches, the comedy on the 
stage, the clown, the joke, all draw their mirth- 
provoking power from this one condition that 
describes life. My little girl had lost some 
trifling, but valued possession. She searched 
through the whole realm of her small kingdom. 
When I asked, "Did you find it, Dear?/' the uni- 
versal human wistfulness overshadowed her 
childish brow and she answered, "No, I almost 

found it, but ." 

There are some theories of life held by many 
serious persons that would make of it nothing 
but a comedy. That, for instance, which takes 
account only of molecules and force, which re- 
fuses to recognize as knowledge all that lies be- 
yond the province of the senses, which says, 
"The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes 
bile," which has no answer to make when we 
inquire concerning the innate sense of principles, 
the existence and practice of truth, justice, love. 
Another theory is that crude conception of ideal- 
ism which says that all phenomena not only do 
not exist, but are entirely misrepresentative of 



reality, and that our only salvation lies in utter 
disregard of the visible universe. Another con- 
ception, and one that held sway over many 
minds for many years and that is yet only slowly 
ebbing away, is that which thinks of humanity 
as broken loose and gone astray and redeemable 
only under conditions that with many are too 
difficult of attainment, and with many, too offen- 
sive to the reason to admit of their ever being- 
fulfilled. These thoughts were all alive once, 
with reasons for their existence, and all signal- 
ized the desire and effort of the race for ex- 
planatory truth. But today they are crumbling 
corpses or fading ghosts. If these or many 
other long-held thoughts of life were true, it 
would be difficult to say which would be the 
wiser, to lie down and be crushed by the agoniz- 
ing tragedy, or die of hysterical laughter at the 
silly comedy? The reason finds itself dishon- 
ored by such theories; the heart feels crushed 
and sickened, and the soul within us rises up in 
such awful majesty that we hurriedly and shame- 
facedly put aside these poor, little, unworthy 
thoughts of being and turn our faces toward the 
light wherein we may read a truer story of life 
and its meaning. 



There is such a word of power, — of power 
because it is a word of truth. Listen ! — with ears 
closed to all the world, — and your soul shall 
speak. Listen! — with open and quickened ears, 
— and a voice shall come, slowly, it may be, but 
surely, from every substance and force and com- 
bination of the substances and forces of life, and 
from out the depths of every fellow-soul, and 
confirm the truth that is in the deeps of your 
own nature. 

GOD IS. The whole order of things is a 
good order. All of manifested life is the ex- 
pression of one great, wise, loving, powerful, 
purposeful Intelligence, that through the ages 
and generations is working out a plan of un- 
wordable magnitude and beauty — a plan that 
intends and accomplishes the perfect develop- 
ment and welfare of each being, each atom in 
existence. And the process can be trusted no 
less than the purpose. The mind which plans and 
guides is not outside of men and matter. It is 
higher and deeper than these, yet its action is 
through them — they are made by It, and are It. 
"O God, I think thy thoughts after Thee," wor- 
shipped the devout scientist. "Thou thinkest 
Thy thoughts through me," murmurs the under- 



standing heart. The Power which creates and 
sustains and moves, does not work upon Its own 
creations, but is a constituent element of their 
being, is that in which all the elements inhere, 
by virtue of which they live and act and create 
their own conditions, events, environments and 
relations. Therefore I, who am a living thought 
of the all-wise Mind, a projection of the infinite 
Power, do not suffer from any conditions which 
I have not created; I do not meet with any 
events that I have not evoked by inward dispo- 
sitions or outward acts ; I am not bound by any 
chains of circumstance that I have not forged; 
I am in no relationships that I have not woven. 
There is nothing which touches me that is painful 
or untoward or galling or vicious that has not its 
root and cause in me. And the visible fruit ap- 
pears to me exteriorly, that I may understand 
how I have desired or intended to do something 
for or in myself, rather than as the server and 
lover of the great Nature that carries us all to- 
ward the beatitude of selflessness. How faithful 
and beneficent, then, is the Intelligent Power 
working in me, that will not spare me the pain- 
ful scourge and urge, by which alone I may learn 
to walk in the way of love and life ! I will trust 
it; I will not seek to escape from it, for I know 

10 



that everywhere I will be met by that fidelity and 
benevolence that enclose me, by that universal 
rectitude and love which I am and must wholly 
become. 

This insight into the Unity of Life is the 
great, all-comforting, restful, invigorating, en- 
larging experience that each soul of us needs, or 
has found as an all-sufficiency. It is an affirma- 
tion enclosing all our doubts. It steals the sting 
from every pain, banishes every fear, illuminates 
every perplexity. It overflows the littleness of 
our lives, purifies our hearts, puts the iron into 
our wills, weds us to universal ends. It is the 
essence of all that is sweetest and best in the 
highest counsels of Christianity — the admoni- 
tions toward trust in a loving Father. We may 
call it that if we will, so long as we see that not 
only our own little interests, but the reins of the 
universe are held in infinitely fatherly hands, 
and if, when we say, "I and my Father are one," 
we mean it not only for this one small self, but 
for all the other divine selves that walk with us 
toward the promised land. Have faith, then! 
Let us have faith when we are crushed and hurt, 
when we are misconceived and shut in, when 
we seem to have failed and when evil seems 
scarcely less rampant in our own lives than in 

11 



the world around us. Let us have faith when 
we look out over the surface of life and our 
whole being seems grated upon by the inequali- 
ties it presents to view. To remember at these 
times and at all times, the sublime thought of 
that one who said, "Have the faith of God," — 
the faith that sees the consummation from the 
beginning and "the journey's end in every step 
of the way," is to win the victory that does more 
than vanquish, that transmutes all things into 
itself. 

II 

THE GOOD OF EVIL 

When once we seriously ask, "Is there good in 
evil ?" our inquiry will receive a reply. There is 
no question which the human mind may ask,, 
that does not carry its own answer with it. It is 
a question only that we may discover the answer. , 
We think we have been asking this question since 
the dawning of conscious intelligence within us, 
but we have only been anxiously inquiring, 
"How can I escape from evil ?" Let us eliminate 
the personal element for once, and look at the 
matter impartially and judicially. 

Is there good in evil — good that could not be 
made manifest except by the agency of that 

12 



which is dark and painful? If the affirmative to 
this inquiry can be seen, is not evil, as evil, ban- 
ished from the universe of conception? 

An insight into the nature of evil may be of 
value to us here. Is it an entity — something 
that has a real existence of its own? Under- 
standing what all life is — an expression of Eter- 
nal Goodness — , we see that there can be no 
separate existence, no thing in itself, that could 
be called evil or bad; what appears such, must 
be a shadow, a reverse side, a failure to be, 
rather than some state of being. Whatever 
may be the possibilities connected with our men- 
tal processes in the future, we cannot now con- 
ceive of anything — any being, object or condi- 
tion — -that has not its corresponding state of not 
being. We cannot think of any possible attain- 
ment, and not also entertain the idea of possi--fr 
bility of failure. All that is called evil is the 
absence of perfection, the lack of completion. 4 
Faithfully apply this thought to any and every 
condition that could be looked at as evil, and we 
will see the truth of it. Physical disease, for 
instance, is a flawless example of this idea; all 
disease is a lack of the normal, positive condi- 
tion, health. We can easily see the truth of this 

13 



matter in connection with bereavement of 
friends, or money, or position, or the estimation 
of society. Disappointment in what we are striv- 
ing for, is, of course, to suffer the lack of that 
which we would have or do or be. All the crimes 
of society — the injustice, the greed, the cruelty, 
the anger, the violence, the selfishness with which 
man often practically regards his fellow-men, as 
an individual and collectively, are all the results 
and indications of the immature and blind con- 
dition, in which we do not yet perceive the truth 
that we are all brothers — children of one great 
Parent-Life, — related elements of that Life; and 
that consideration of our equal, mutual interests, 
is the only sane method of association. This 
view is also perfectly explanatory of the seem- 
ing injustices and cruelties of nature. The "Na- 
ture" that is, apparently, outside of him, and 
the child of Nature, man, are not separate ex- 
istences; they are links in one chain of being, 
varying expressions of one universal force and 
effort. That force and effort are of a moral 
nature and in process of evolution. All the 
throes and convulsions of nature such as storms, 
earthquakes, and similar occurrences are but evi- 
dences that the whole great organism has not yet 

14 



attained a condition of equilibrium or comple- 
tion. They find their parallel in the passions of 
man. These passions of nature have no more 
of the quality of permanence than the like quak- 
ings of human nature, and will disappear when 
the latter are outgrown. "The whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of 
God." Again, there are children born into condi- 
tions of deformity of both body and mind; con- 
ditions of degradation both of nature and cir- 
cumstances. But here, too, we find the solution 
forthcoming. No person is a separate being — 
a somewhat, that should or can, in any sense, be 
considered by himself. He is an element of the 
world-life, at once an effect and a cause, and his 
conditions, of body and mind and circumstances, 
are indicative of the success or failure on the 
part of society in general and his direct ances- 
tors in particular, in the realization of their 
dignity and duty. 

Further than this, each new soul comes no' 
here or there into the active phases of the world- 
life, without reason or choice of his own. The 
decided character of natural tendencies and de- 
velopments reveal this too plainly to the eyes of 

15 



the unprejudiced student, to admit of doubt con- 
cerning it. A past there must have been for every 
soul that has taken human form; we may only 
blunderingly guess at the nature of that past, but 
that it must have been, is all too clearly evi- 
denced by the structure and peculiarities of the 
being, himself. And if we look inward for the 
reason, we shall see that every outward condi- 
tion into which a child is born is the symbol of 
some attainment or the lack of it, in the life of 
that soul. ^ 

As every external condition is the symbol of 
an inner condition, the outer form and move- 
ment that admonish us of what has been done, 
or has failed to be done, within, so it is a mirror, 
in which we may read the truth of what we now 
are, and how far we have come. We can look 
at every pain, or distress, or terror in this way, 
and the revelations it will bring to us will cause 
it to stand forth a minister of benignant beauty 
and efficiency. Not that always will we be able 
to immediately decipher the details of these di- 
vine meanings, to define the particular illness of 
the soul, which the physical illness betokens, the 
particular weakness which the failure signifies, 
the antagonism in our own nature which takes 

16 



the form of a poisoned shaft of malice from an 
apparent enemy; but always, if we welcome it, 
in confidence that there is no such thing as in- 
justice, and that every event that befalls us is 
put forth from our own nature, we shall, at 
least, be able to understand that suffering of any 
sort, brings to us the message that inward health 
does not prevail, and that we need the effect of 
more lofty aspiration, more intense effort, and 
a more complete consecration to the task of ac- 
tualizing our highest ideals. Let the purifying 
tide of the highest life sweep through the soul, 
and it will wash away all particular sediments. 
And, very gradually, it may be, but surely, there 
will also come the clearing of vision that will 
enable us to see the definite lines along which 
our efforts should be directed. 

Thus evil serves as a spur to progress. We 
know all good things by contrast. We see beau- 
ty, we feel comfort, we are led into the choices 
of wisdom, by strongly defined contrasts. If 
conditions were always agreeable, would not 
the "here" be as good as the "there?" Thus 
we may accept the hardship, the pain, and even 
the sin, not only as a light of revelation concern- 
ing the present condition, but as an index finger 

17 



pointing steadily onward and upward. True 
resignation is no indolent bowing of the head, 
and letting the tempestuous waters of life beat 
sore upon it. It is accepting pain submissively 
indeed, and with no shadow of resistance, joy- 
fully acknowledging it as the kindest and most 
faithful of ministering angels, but also loyally 
accepting its suggestion, "It is better farther 
on. 

This is the deepest and highest view of that 
which is called evil, — of its nature and office. 
But even when we find it difficult to look quite as 
deeply into the matter as this, we may find many 
considerations that will bring us comfort and 
courage, lying, as it were, like pearls, on the sur- 
face. As, for example, the truth that no great 
or beautiful thing, from the creation of a lovely 
form, to the performance of a noble deed, was 
ever yet accomplished, but by passing through 
stages of stress and hardship, or, at least, of in- 
tense, soul-trying effort. 

There is the peaceful landscape, stretched in 
smiling repose. But the majestic, sky-mantled 
mountains, the confines of the mighty sea, and 
the solidly-framed, rock-ribbed globe, itself, 
were formed only by such throes and vicissitudes 

16 



of nature as we may only guess at as yet. Bring 
before the mind's eye all the civilizations and 
governments and forward movements of the 
world's history. They represent the efforts and 
lives of great men who have caught large visions, 
— visions for which they have striven and fought 
and bled until they have been able to cut their 
way through barriers, mountain-high, or have 
traversed seemingly endless morasses of doubt, 
ignorance, superstition, conservatism, and the 
brute opposition of stupidity, — pressing on until 
often they have laid their bones in some crevice 
by the wayside. Only by such means did any 
ideal image become stamped on the institutions 
of human society. 

What makes any life grand or heroic but the 
triumph over great hardships, or the courageous 
meeting of great trials ? The glory of each great 
man has been that he achieved the seemingly im- 
possible. Those whom the world has called its 
Messiahs and Saviors have passed through the 
fiercest furnaces of affliction. Never has there 
been a Buddha without his sacrifice, a Christ 
without his cross. 

How shall the sympathies flow, unless we have 
learned, by personal experience, the agony of the 

19 



thornpath of pain, along which others are now 
walking? How shall compassion, that purest 
child of love, be brought to the birth except by 
throes of suffering? How shall "patience have 
her perfect work" except by long contact with 
hope deferred? How shall the nature become 
strong, but by the vigorous and continual exer- 
cise of the moral muscle, in the attempt to 
reach higher ground? 

Yet the liberation of these finest qualities, the 
beauty and symmetry of character thus formed, 
is what we would refuse to ourselves when we 
seek to escape from hardship and pain. We re- 
fuse the truest knowledge, the largest develop- 
ment, the widest usefulness, when we put aside, 
even in desire, the cup of suffering. 

"The cry of man's anguish went up unto God: 

'Lord, take away pain ! 
The shadow that darkens the world Thou hast made, 

The close-coiling chain 
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs 

On the wings that would soar — 
Lord, take away pain from the world Thou hast made, 
That it love Thee the more!' 

Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world : 

'Shall I take away pain, 
And with it the power of the soul to endure, 

Made strong by the strain? 
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart, 

And sacrifice high? 

20 



Will ye lose all your heroes that lift from the fire 

White brows to the sky? 
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price 

And smiles at its loss? 
Can ye spare from your lives that would climb unto 
mine 

Any anguish or cross?'" 

We cannot spare these chastening influences, 
for thus it is that the Artist — Life — beats us 
out into the fair shape of the Ideal. Mayhap 
there will come a time when we can look so un- 
flinchingly at the great, luminous, affirmative 
nature of life, that we shall need no sight or 
touch of the dark negative ; a time when we shall 
so give ourselves to the power of the onward- 
flowing current that we shall be sensible of no 
swirl or eddy that seems to sweep us backward 
for even the briefest moment; a time when 
progress shall be strifeless, and there shall be 
only the joyous, all-pervading consciousness of 
the unswervingly-upward trend of life. Until 
then, let us gladly welcome all consciousness of 
evil that may help us to rise above that con- 
sciousness, all pain that serves its purpose by 
being transmuted into the perfect joy. 

"Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the 
little that is Good steadily hastening towards im- 
mortality, 

And the vast all that is called Evil I saw hastening to 
merge itself and become lost and dead." 

21 



But "dead" only that it may find a glorified 
resurrection in the Life of infinite, eternal Good- 
ness. 

Ill 

"THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF 
GOD" 

The awakened soul aspires to live in an abid- 
ing consciousness of the Presence of God. He 
will be content with nothing less than such a 
sense of the all-sufficient comfort as brings con- 
solation in every trial; such a sense of the 
Everlasting Strength as would enable us to bear 
every burden and go fearlessly through the dark- 
est passages of life ; such a sense of the Infinite 
Wisdom as would illuminate every vexed ques- 
tion; such a sense of righteousness as would 
keep alive and burning within us that passionate 
desire for goodness, which possesses us at times, 
but at others seems weak and faint — the desire 
for perfect integrity, that keeps us inwardly 
pure and outwardly just and tender; such a 
sense as uplifts us in ecstasy, and reveals to us 
the beauty and perfection that are behind and 
beneath and above and in all that now appears 
low or perplexing or unworthy — "the splendor 
of the God, bursting through each chink and 

90 



cranny." If we could always live on this height, 
have eyes that were always open to this won- 
drous vision, how should we soar where now 
we creep! 

To live in this perpetual beatitude is not only 
the privilege, but the entire duty of every human 
soul. To this end came we into being as indi- 
viduals. We can attain it, but not without effort 
on our own part. This effort, — strenuous, unre- 
mitting, taxing every particle of the capacity of 
the mind for attention, all the energy of the will, 
all the powers of the whole being, — this effort 
is the vocation whereunto we are called. 

In the seventeenth century there lived, as a 
laybrother of a modest, monastic order, a simple, 
humble soul, who was unlearned as regards the 
culture of the schools, who wrote no book and 
held no high ecclesiastical position ; yet who lived 
a life that had the power to make men stop and 
think and look up ; a life that gave one the feel- 
ing of a touch of heaven somewhere in the atmo- 
sphere, a life that made the kitchen of the 
monastery a temple, shining with a divine light, 
as he performed the duties of cook; a life that 
gave dignity and sacredness to every humble 
task; and drew to him for counsel high dig- 

23 



nitaries of the church; and a life that has re- 
mained to this day an inspiration to many de- 
vout souls. It is to this one we are indebted 
for the happy expression which forms the title 
of this chapter. He told of "The Practice of the 
Presence of God" as the open secret of his 
radiant life. And every soul from whom have 
perceptibly emanated the divine light and power 
that have lured and lifted other souls upward, 
has, in some fashion, spoken of this method of 
life as that on which all spiritual attainment de- 
pends. The presence of God must be practised 
with the earnestness, the unswerving attention, 
the intense application with which we practise 
any art in which it is our dearest hope to achieve 
success. 

There is first that act of the Will, by which 
we select the largest and worthiest idea of God 
we can find in our own mind; by which we 
choose to become thoroughly in love with that 
Idea; by which we consecrate ourselves, in a 
once-for-all way, to a glad, unquestioning, but 
intelligent obedience to no motive in all the 
wide world, but the behests of the God who is 
thus enthroned. Following this, there is the con- 
stant reference to this Highest Wisdom as the 

24 



Arbiter of all our actions; the continual effort 
to actualize this highest Goodness in the practi- 
cal life, to let the Infinite qualities flow through 
the finite capacities and functions. The soul 
who has gone thus far is sure to learn, sooner 
or later, that the God he has apparently chosen 
and installed in this way — that he has seemingly 
almost created, — was the Primal Resident in the 
inmost sanctuary of his nature, appearing in re- 
sponse to his conscious need and will — the One 
in whom at last must be merged all the varied 
dispositions and developments that seem, often, 
to represent, at different stages of growth, many 
different personalities within the one man. 

But along with the practice of the presence of 
God in one's own being, there must go the effort 
and purpose to find Him in all other manifesta- 
tions of life. 

No especial effort is needed to detect the Im- 
manent God in all the appealing beauty of 
nature. Very slightly anointed eyes may behold 
this Presence in the rich and tender colorings, 
the enveloping fragrance of a rose ; in the stead- 
fast strength and strangely familiar grandeur of 
the mountain outline ; in the caressing softness of 
the sward. His warmth of love embraces us in 



25 



the sunshine; His high thoughts smite us in the 
tempest; His height of glory lifts us toward the 
stars; His somewhat nearer loveliness bathes us 
in the tints of sunset ; He wooes us with the win- 
someness of motherlove in all His humblest 
creatures. Poor, indeed, is the human creature 
who has not been soothed and thrilled and 
powerfully stimulated by contact with the Di- 
vine Presence in nature; who does not know 
how to open the gates for the in-flowing of this 
all-purifying and powerful flood of life, that is 
at once a healing and a tonic. 

But while it is easy to see Him in the loveli- 
ness of the natural world and in the happier 
conditions of life, we commonly find it more 
difficult to detect the benignant and unfailing 
love of God in the more trying circumstances in 
which we often find ourselves. When all goes 
well, and we find our objects easy of access, our 
plans fitting into nice conjunction with surround- 
ing conditions and occurrences, we say, "How 
Providential !" — which is to observe "How much 
of God there is in it all!" Why should not we 
feel the same when we find our plans raveling 
out into uselessness, and our objects elusively 
fleeing before us? Might not the failure be a 

26 



condition more needed by us, at this particular 
time, than the success ? 

We can cultivate the power to see, and the 
habit of seeing, the Divine Wisdom in every 
binding circumstance, every unwished-for event, 
every galling relation, every trying and sad ex- 
perience! It is a waste of energy to regret it, 
to strive to escape from it. It is an evidence of 
knowledge of the real truth of its nature, when 
we meet it as an expression of the wise and lov- 
ing Genius that clothes Himself in all manner 
of strange disguises, that we may be adequately 
taught and safely led. In a tale of the early life 
of the Buddha, when the unwisely tender father 
would have shielded his son from every re- 
pulsive or painful sight or sound, the gods are 
said to have taken on themselves the forms of 
the aged, the decrepit, the needy and suffering 
and dead, that the eyes of this soul might be 
opened to the facts of life and the flood-gates of 
his sympathies unbarred. Constantly regarding 
the presence of this Highest Wisdom in all the 
experiences of life, we shall soon come to see 
that these experiences are our saviors, filled 
with the great, retrieving, restoring, upbuilding 
power and life of God that is in all and through 
all. 



27 



"Let me go where'er I will 
I hear a sky-born music still: 
****** 

'Tis not in the high stars alone, 
Nor in the cups of budding flowers, 
Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone 
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, 
But in the mud and scum of things 
There alway, alway something sings." 

Another excellent opportunity for practising 
the Deific Presence is that of finding Him in all 
our fellow-men. Until we see God in each 
human being, we remain strangers and aliens, 
unacquainted with even the nearest friend, and 
separated by blindness and ignorance from all 
other human beings. We speak of "a knowledge 
of human nature;" the only true knowledge is 
that which recognizes in each soul a child of 
God, a spirit born of the infinite Father-spirit, 
apart from whom there is no being. It is that 
perception which sees that in every man there 
is that which not only renders him redeemable 
from the saddest and sinfullest condition, but 
translatable into the highest manner of being; 
which sees that the slightest or commonest bit 
of affection or sacrifice or self-effacing courage 
is a shining forth of the Deific nature which is 
so inevitably in man that it breaks through at 
many points, long before he has recognized it 

28 



and is voluntarily acting according to its dic- 
tates. If there be this faith within us, we will, 
in all our relations and transactions, proceed on 
the assumption that "there is an infinite worthi- 
ness in man which will appear at the call of 
worth/' Then will not only the being, but the 
interests of each brother-soul be sacred in our 
eyes, and an all-compelling reverence and love 
will call forth the God in each human breast, 
and bring him into harmony with all the God 
without. We will understand that this thought 
should be ever present in our relations with our 
children. This is no ignorant little being, "my 
child," on whom I must enforce submission to 
my desires, but a soul, in all the dignity and 
majesty of his divine birthright, a soul on his 
upward way, with his own great destiny to 
work out, a soul with whom I am brought into 
these tender and mysterious relations that I may 
be to him no dictator, but a friendly aid toward 
all height and beauty of character. Thus rever- 
ing, thus trusting the God within my child, 
harshness and anxiety will lose themselves in my 
wise and calm effort to assist his footsteps in 
the heavenward path. 



29 



Another instrument furnished us on which we 
may profitably practise the presence of God, is 
property. Two heresies concerning property 
have gained precedence in our mind and must 
be eradicated by patient effort, if it is not pos- 
sible for us at once to let the sunlight of true 
vision banish them forever. One is the thought 
that property, income, salary, or whatever shape 
"this world's goods" may have taken for us, is 
something apart from our real selves, different 
from that portion of us which worships and 
loves, that part which we call the moral or 
spiritual nature. Our financial affairs are as 
much a part of our real being as our aspirations, 
and a part in which we can as truly behold the 
glory and perfection of the One who is not only 
source and power, but also form, in all the great 
mystery of life. Our aspirations are revelations 
of that which we may attain; our present pos- 
sessions are revelations of our present attain- 
ments. Often very luxurious surroundings and 
enjoyment of them are indications of satisfac- 
tion with low achievements ; and that the higher 
powers of the Spirit are asleep. And a straight- 
ened financial condition is often the reflection 
and evidence of that bound state of soul that is 



30 



at once a warning and a prophecy. Riches and 
poverty and all the degrees of condition between 
the two, have many other lessons and offices for 
us; these mentioned are but examples of their 
beneficent teachings. 

The other form of unbelief is that which con- 
ceives of anything as "mine." No form that 
property can assume can be anything but a vis- 
ible combination or utilization of the eternal 
forces of the universe, the forces .that are 
neither mine nor thine, nor any man's, the forces 
that are the sensible manifestations of the "In- 
finite and Eternal Energy" that worketh through 
all. The only sense in which this land, or bank 
stock can be called mine is that in which I am 
granted the privilege and responsibility of be- 
coming a medium for its redistribution in the 
world. 

"This is not my house; it is the house of 
Christ," says the true priest of God, whom Vic- 
tor Hugo introduces to the world in his im- 
mortal tale of the redemptive power of love; 
"You are suffering," he goes on, addressing the 
weary, hopeless, crime-sick soul who has sought 
his door, "you are hungry and thirsty; be wel- 
come. And do not thank me; do not tell me 

31 



that I take you into my house. This is the house 
of no man except him who needs an asylum. I 
tell you, who are a traveler, that you are more 
at home here than I ; whatever is here is yours.'' 

It is not goods, nor money, then, in the usual 
and vulgar sense, that I have and hold. I have, 
if I see the truth, entered into a holy communion 
and partnership with the "Giver of every good 
and perfect gift," who holdeth the welfare of 
all His children equally dear. And this blessed- 
ness of sharing is not reserved alone for those 
who have large so-called possessions. He who 
has little shall not be debarred from the enrich- 
ments and enlargements of nature that come in 
connection with the sweet act of sharing with 
those who are needy. It is not the size but the 
quality of the giver's intention instilled into the 
offering, that determines its value; and long ago 
a wise teacher held up for the world's admira- 
tion a rare and precious jewel called "the 
widow's mite." But it is not only in that which 
is given that we may practically recognize the 
august Presence. There should not be less of 
consecration in our manner of spending for our 
own needs than in our bestowal upon others. If 
we rightly perceive whereunto the body is to be 

32 



housed and clothed and fed, — that it may be a 
fitter instrument for the soul's use; to what end 
the mind is to receive discipline and refreshment 
and enrichment from the treasure-houses of 
many lands and ages, — that it may better do the 
soul's bidding — , then shall we never spend, but 
"according to our genius;" then careless lavish- 
ness shall be. seen in its real vulgarity, and the 
money with which we purchase food or books 
for our own use shall be as sacredly given as 
that with which we feed the poor or endow 
churches. 

Still further, each duty is a sacrament fraught 
with the presence of the Highest. Otherwise it 
is not a duty. The feeling, / ought, is the turn- 
ing of the Divine Energy towards its task, and 
the conscious recognition of it is the holiest of 
human experiences, except that further one of 
glad and intelligent yielding thereunto. These 
experiences dwell in us blindly, for long and 
long, "the energies working within the energies," 
as the Oriental thought vigorously expresses it. 
We are pressed upon by the imperative sense of 
duty, but we know not yet what it is that should 
be done; we labor for much that is not bread; 
we rush forth with increasingly feverish haste 



33 



into more and more complicated maelstroms of 
action; and often, failing of our ends, or of 
relish for such ends as are attained, we turn 
dizzy and faithless, trusting neither ourselves 
nor any idea of a clearly-guiding Power. But 
this is because we are children, and do not un- 
derstand that the God who acts, proceeds di- 
rectly from the God who is in the action, and is 
the end of the action. Let us understand that the 
same Wisdom that overpowers us with the sense 
of duty can make clear the object that is the 
correlative of that sense. Realizing that our in- 
dividual power to act is a streamlet of the divine 
energy, let us trust it to flow in a divine direc- 
tion. Thus shall we see God in the action and 
its accomplishment. Then we shall cease to be 
disturbed and concerned as to what we 
do. No place or moment or task will 
be inopportune or repugnant, except such 
as bears the stamp of our private wil- 
fulness. Of every least, common task we 
will know that if in the divine plan we are set 
to perform it, there must be a divine manner of 
doing it. We will serve tables and scrub floors 
with holy hands, and the sewer shall become "a 
sanctuary in spite of itself." 

34 



But to return to the thought of deepest im- 
port, my highest obligation is to discover, to rec- 
ognize, to live with, to be, the God that is within 
myself. Failing in this, I will never become 
truly acquainted with Him elsewhere. If I do 
not continually trust the presence of the High- 
est Wisdom here at the very center of my being, 
I shall not find it always in the external condi- 
tions and experiences that are such as a lesser 
wisdom would shrink from. Unless I give place 
to the Soul of the largest benevolence as my 
soul, I may grasp and endeavor to hold some- 
what in the clutch of a small selfishness that 
conceives of its interests as separate from those 
of the Universe. If I see myself as aught but 
a channel of the Highest Goodness, something 
less than goodness may blur and stain my con- 
duct. If I mistake myself for anything but a 
small fragment of Universal Being, I may 
wound or bruise, or be wounded by, such other 
fragments as I may disregard or jostle or dis- 
place. 

But I can learn to abide in the presence of the 
supreme and solitary Majesty that fills and over- 
flows this small sanctuary of my human soul. I 

35 



can draw on the flawless wisdom, the boundless 
strength. I can say to my weak heart : 

"Heart, thou art great enough for a love that never 
tires/' 

In Nature, in all the experiences of life, in 
my brother-men, in my possessions, in my daily 
tasks, in my own soul, I may look so steadily at 
the Immanent God, that the great glory shall 
break through everywhere, and all life shall be- 
come resplendent with that ineffable light. 

IV 

THE STRENGTH OF NON-RESISTANCE 

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye 
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say 
unto you, That ye resist not evil ; but whosoever 
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him 
the other also. And if any man shall sue thee 
at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have 
thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee 
to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him 
that asketh thee, and from him that would bor- 
row of thee, turn not thou away." 

There is a deathless vigor, attainable by every 
one of us, but possessed not so long as we prac- 

36 



tically doubt concerning its source or the method 
of its attainment. It is the unfailing energy 
drawn from the very fountain of life itself, 
when all striving has ceased and the currents of 
the individual being, unimpeded by any personal 
will, flow with the current of Universal Being. 
He who has acquired the art of absolute non-re- 
sistance has passed, by a partially obscured door, 
into the cabinet of causes, into the secret place 
whence are the issues of life. 

This principle of Non-Resistance has been 
taught by the religious and spiritual teachers 
who have sounded the most profound depths of 
human need and experience, and risen to the 
most lofty heights of power and inspiration; 
those whom the largest numbers of intelligent 
men have unquestioningly received as bearing 
the stamp of a heavenly origin. 

And yet, when this principle has been stated 
as a rule of action, it has met with more of 
questioning, of hesitation and antagonism than 
any other. It has seemed peculiarly out of har- 
mony with the whole thought and genius of our 
western world. So intent, indeed, have the peo- 
ples of this latest civilization been on the work- 
ing out of certain ideals of material benefit and 

37 



progress, that as a principle or as an important 
element of the teachings of the great, uni- 
versally-recognized prophet of this portion of 
the world, it has been very largely lost sight of. 
It has not only occupied no prominent place in 
the expositions of his professed interpreters, but 
those very priests and instructors have appeared, 
for the most part, to feel no obligation to live in 
the spirit indicated by the teaching of their 
leader, at least to give this spirit anything like 
a pervading prevalence in their thought or ac- 
tions. On hearing a clear statement of the teach- 
ing of Jesus on this point, an intelligent man 
who had all his life attended the services of 
prominent churches, remarked, with no little of 
surprised interest, "I have never heard anything 
like that." When awakened souls have eagerly 
inquired of their ordinary spiritual teachers con- 
cerning the meaning of Jesus on this point, the 
explanations have often been but ingenious or 
bungling equivocations, although, we may well 
believe, ignorantly conscientious ones. Of course 
there have been many souls, take it the cen- 
turies through, who have reached a sufficient de- 
gree of intellectual and spiritual freedom to slip 
the noose of popular opinion, and not only per- 

38 



ceive, but live in the beauty of this transcendent 
idea, but these have generally succeeded in giv- 
ing only an impression of their own courage and 
sanctity, rather than of the practicability of 
their method. Our governments and society are 
organized to punish the evil-doer and protect 
the innocent. As nations we are equipped for 
the violent protection of our rights and bloody 
resistance to any encroachment on them. Our 
"business is organized warfare." There is pro- 
vision made in even the most humane of our 
institutions, our asylums for the needy, our 
churches and schools, for some sort of discipline 
for offenders. The home has been the most 
nearly exempt from methods of punishment, but 
perhaps the best-ordered and most truly con- 
science-governed homes have been those where 
obedience to a general law was in some fashion 
required and a penalty laid on those who disre- 
garded it. We have grown into the habit of 
thinking that it is a disgrace and weakness to be 
found lacking in firmness in the assertion and 
defense of our "rights," and we almost univers- 
ally ascribe the solidity and glory of our civili- 
zation to our warlike and aggressive methods. 
But all the while there speaks to the quickened 

39 



and reverent ear of him who will listen, the 
sublimely authoritative voice of him whom many 
have recognized as foremost in the counsels of 
the God of all wisdom, — "But I say unto you, 
that ye resist not evil." If any man shall smite 
you, give him the opportunity for another blow. 
If he would take from you by force or process 
of legal proceeding, give him more than he asks, 
grant his most unreasonable request, and lend, 
hoping for no return. Is not all this clearly an 
outrage on the best ideas of justice and right 
that society has developed up to this time? 

Our whole difficulty in regard to this matter 
has proceeded from our attempt to look at it 
from the outside and judge of it by its external 
appearance, plausibility and possible conse- 
quences. Perhaps this has been the best we 
could do, thus far. The knowledge of any prin- 
ciple is received, with most people, by its trans- 
lation into a method of action, and the inter- 
pretation comes slowly through its application. 
But there are always those who intuitively per- 
ceive the eternal, necessary qualities that go to 
constitute a principle that spreads its immeasur- 
able vastness of truth, as a background for all 
possible actual explications of its existence and 

40 



beauty. To the pure in heart, Non-Resistance 
has revealed itself as such a principle, and when 
shown to be such, all questions as to whether it 
be practicable as a method of action, appear 
frivolously irrelevant and to have had their birth 
on a low plane of selfish utilitarianism. It will 
be seen that when it finds voluntary and con- 
sistent expression in an individual life, non-re- 
sistance is an attitude of mind rather than a 
mode of action. It is the habit of looking at the 
invisible. It is the recognition of the Divine 
Nature that is at the heart of all things, that is 
the essential substance, source and purpose of 
each being and object in the universe; that is the 
central, formative force and cause of every 
event, condition, relation and experience that has 
ever been known or will be known. Non-Resist- 
ance of evil is the exercise of that Reason 
wherein we see things as they are, in their own 
true state of being, not in the haze caused by 
the crude and often repulsively-unformed condi- 
tions incidental to their and our state of extreme 
youth and partial development. 

One who had, long after the hairs were white 
and the years increased, preserved a face and 
manner of beautiful serenity, was asked the 

41 



secret of her calm and replied, "I remember, al- 
ways, that there is a Heart at the heart of the 
universe that is friendly to me." The confidence 
of this memory is what he practically expresses, 
who steadily refuses to combat any appearance 
of evil. He considers it wasted time to expend 
energy or care in attempting to destroy that 
which is of its own nature impermanent and 
must in the course of a natural process disin- 
tegrate and disappear. 

He makes this thought the guiding motive in 
all his intercourse with his fellows. He says, I 
understand that this violent aggressiveness, this 
grasping at the apparent good, this disregard of 
the need of others, these indications of a low and 
coarse origin in the brute nature, that for a time 
I behold in my brother, are but the unpleasant 
vestiges of a lower state of being, that presently 
will fall away and leave him pure and fair, the 
child of God which he is. I will see the true 
man now, and, ministering to him, procure his 
more speedy emergence. In him I will confide, 
him I will address, and to him I will lend and 
give all things that are typical of the wealth of 
the soul, which I share with him, if I, too, be 
a true child of the Highest. If, in the blindness 

42 



of his childish ignorance, he would wound or in- 
jure me, it is only the same poor weakness and 
wickedness in me that he would strike, and I will 
perpetuate that in neither of us, by a returning 
blow. If he will and must, let him beat into 
nothingness the brute in me, and exhaust even 
to the death the brute in him. Meanwhile the 
God in me shall call with such power unto the 
God in him, that we shall come to express the 
harmony of identical nature. 

And thus will I regard all the outer condi- 
tions of my life howsoever unlovely or painful 
or degrading they may be. I will not resist 
them, understanding that in whatever strange 
guise they come, they are messengers from the 
Lord of life; they are, seen yet more nearly, 
but the varied coverings of His own majesty of 
Wisdom, as He comes to me with most loving 
intent. I will not resist them; I will go down 
deep enough to find the God in them, and go 
with Him. 

It may now be clearly seen how this attitude 
of mind and rule of conduct are the representa- 
tions, in the will and action, of a principle that 
lies at the very heart of the religious life — a 
principle that sooner or later each one of us will 

43 



have to reckon with, and with which every in- 
dividual life will have to be squared. The in- 
telligently religious life is the life of trust and 
love ; trust in the whole good order of the world ; 
trust in the God that is in everything; love that 
"taketh no account of evil," love that "believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," 
love that "never faileth." When we trust, 
when we love, we do not resist, we find the soul 
that is in harmony with our own soul, and act 
with it. 

There are three specific aspects in which this 
manner of life approves itself to the enlightened 
mind, and these three cover the whole range of 
relationship and duty. 

i. We should practice non-resistance for the 
sake of every soul with whom we come into a 
one-to-one relationship. Faithfully observed, 
this mode of intercourse would banish all the 
irritations, retaliations and recriminations that 
steal so much of the sweetness from the home- 
life. If the tenderness that is the dominant 
chord in every real home, became supreme, 
without a second, the homes would overflow the 
world, and the universal "heavenly home" 
would indeed have become an actuality. Every 

44 



enemy would be slain, if we thus "struck at his 
heart," and overcame his hate by "not-hate." 
Every criminal whom the methods of violence 
have failed to reform — and that means every 
criminal the world has known, for force has 
never converted to purity and nobility one un- 
clean or unworthy wretch — would be constrained 
at last to yield to the patience of infinite gentle- 
ness. 

2. Society is to find not only its noblest de- 
velopment, but its surest method of progress, in 
the practice of this principle. Advancing civi- 
lization represents itself in outward convenience 
and advantage, in increased material comfort, 
in the mastery of natural forces, in the com- 
munizing of facilities for intellectual culture, in 
the growing prevalence of institutions which are 
channels for the overflowing of the humane 
spirit. The accurate observer sees all these as 
evidences of the development of principles, find- 
ing their expression in the practical life. When 
this greatest principle, Trusting Love, shall be 
accepted, shall present the test and set the 
standard in all our societary life, then shall we 
find that the Kingdom of Heaven has not only 
come nigh unto us, but that we have passed 

45 



through its silently-swinging "pearly gates," 
while we clasped hands and walked with our 
brothers. 

3. For ourselves we shall learn that herein 
we find the only place of rest and power. This 
absolute committal of ourselves to unreserved 
trust in Life, in all its manifestations, this say- 
ing, I will recognize no enemy, I will see no 
evil that is not enclosed by, and resolvable into, 
the Perfect Good ; I will resist nothing ; but will 
peacefully co-operate with that Will that works 
for righteousness in and through the life of 
every creature — this preserves to us the strength 
that ordinarily we fritter away in striking at 
shadows. Foolish are the efforts to vanquish 
that which we have taken to be a monstrous 
entity, but whose very name — Sin — reveals it 
to be naught but a failure to be, and whose ap- 
pearance may be wholly obliterated by the wise 
will that replaces it with the only positive sub- 
stance and force in all the realms of life — Good- 
ness. 

Therefore, as said the ancient Sage, Laotze, 
"Reason always practises non-assertion, and 
there is nothing that remains undone." 

"Therefore the holy man puts his person be- 
hind and his person comes to the front. He sur- 

46 



renders his person and his person is preserved. 
Is it not because he seeks not his own ? For that 
reason he can accomplish his own." 

"The Heavenly Reason strives not, but it is 
sure to conquer. It speaks not, but it is sure 
to respond. It summons not, but it comes of 
itself. It works patiently but is sure in its de- 
signs." 

V 
THE NATURE OF LOVE 

Trust is the fixed attitude of the mind of 
him who lives the life of the Spirit. He is com- 
mitted, without reserve, to an absolute and abid- 
ing faith in the Source of life and all the objects 
and processes of life. 

Love is the expression of this trust through 
the emotions, the will and the executive abilities. 
It is at once a sentiment and a method of action. 
In that it is a sentiment, its nature is universal, 
unfathomable. It lays hold on the very essence 
of being. Never shall its beginning be guessed 
at, never its completion beheld, until it shall 
cease to be known as aught that is separate from 
ourselves or its Author. But in its present pe- 
riod of manifestation and our present stage of 

47 



development, it is not only a sentiment but also 
something more and less than that, — a mode of 
behavior and expression of relationship. We 
who would intelligently and voluntarily come 
into harmony with the Divine intention, are con- 
strained to a faith that we can discover and 
make clear to ourselves such characteristics of 
the holy fire and force as will enable us to wholly 
yield the capacities of our human nature to be- 
come fit vessels for the bearing of it into every 
highway and byway of the world's life. To this 
end, although we cannot hope to touch more 
than the outer rim of its beauty and give the 
faintest suggestions of its majestic outlines, we 
would reverently inquire concerning its signifi- 
cance as it may be manifested through us. 

I. Love is not mere affection, such as grows 
easily between those who are conscious of bonds 
formed by the relationships of nature and prox- 
imity. We often confound it with that, and 
argue from that false but naturally assumed 
premise that we cannot love all as we love some 
human beings. Affection, in its purest and most 
refined forms, is a very beautiful picture and 
hint of love, — is indeed in its warmth of enthus- 
iasm, its tender and noble considerations and 

48 



sacrifices for the beloved one, a ray of real love, 
shining through the opaqueness of our heavy 
natures. Observing it in others and in ourselves, 
following its high leadings, we may become in- 
structed as to the loveliness and constancy and 
strength and power of love. The observation 
of a genuine affection, manifested even in the 
life of one who otherwise is living coarsely or 
meanly, is always a joy and an assurance. We 
may say, he is learning by this one little reading 
in the primer of life, a line of life's greatest 
lore, and we know the fuller and richer revela- 
tions must follow, until he shall become a savant, 
a teacher of teachers, and that he and all the 
human family shall continue to grow in this 
knowledge of knowledges until it shall be no 
longer necessary for one to say to another, 
"Know the Lord, for all shall know the Lord, 
from the least even unto the greatest." 

But looking at the affections as they exist in 
us at the present time, we must, if we would 
gather from them hints as to the real nature of 
love, separate that which is high and pure from 
the selfishness in them; from the seemingly in- 
evitable desire for personal good, with which 
they are so marred and weighted, that they often 

49 



bring to us more of pain than of pleasure. In 
its lowest aspect, affection, or that which is mis- 
takenly called love, is merely pleasure in the sen- 
sation of being loved. It is that delight in the 
reception of attention that can so easily pass 
into an aching void of disappointment and long- 
ing when the attention is withdrawn. A higher 
stage of affection reveals it as a sort of com- 
merce, a give and take, in which the giving is 
largely, although not always consciously, the re- 
sult and provocation of the receiving. Let us 
not fail to gather all the sweetness and real sug- 
gestive beauty that we may from this stage of 
the development of love. Better to give in this 
way than not to give at all. And this manifesta- 
tion holds its own intrinsic teaching, also,— 
namely, that all the giving of love brings its 
own return, that no particle of the heart's wealth 
is ever poured out into nothingness, or fails to 
return to the hand of the giver. Later on we 
shall learn that there is a divine recklessness 
that banishes from our minds all concern except 
that of the giving, but most of us as yet have 
found it possible to live — with the exception of 
occasional sublime flights — only on the plane 
where we may receive love's price in coin of 

50 



its own kind. A soul loyally following the in- 
dications which life gives us in this, that might 
be called the economic stage in the growth of 
love, would come to see something of its real 
nature — would grow into the observation of the 
fact that more joy was generated within him- 
self by his bestowal than by his reception of the 
offices of love, and in the course of time would 
prove his own high lineage by voluntarily ex- 
changing his "market-cart for a chariot of the 
sun." But it is possible for us to open the eyes 
now, and by a recognition of the truth, pass 
swiftly by an intellectual process, over all the 
dreary lengths that otherwise must be traversed 
by practical experience. Doing this we shall see 
that,— 

2. Love is the will to serve. It is that state 
of the soul in which the giver is purely a giver ; 
in which he so separates himself from that 
lower nature that feels pleasure in receiving, 
that it is as though that nature were dead. He 
knows not whether he receives or no. He heeds 
not whether his act meets recognition. Here 
is a soul who needs the kindly service of a 
friend. He can be that friend. The act and its 
reward are one and are not separated in the 

51 



mind of the lover. It is said that "true love can- 
not be unrequited." This is true, but because 
it is requited by naught but itself. "All the 
money of God is God." Thus love begins to 
shine with its own light, and we become con- 
scious of the enchanting flavor of that wine of 
eternal joy which is quaffed only by lavishly 
pouring it out for others. 

3. Yet if love were only the will to serve, it 
might bear with it some sense of superiority, 
as though it were somewhat the richer and gave 
in princely fashion to a beggar. It gives, indeed, 
and for the joy of giving; but if its own light 
truly illuminates its movements, it sees that its 
offering is laid at the shrine of a god. For Love 
is the perception of the true nature of the being 
loved. It is the clarified vision by which we see 
that every object of life, beautiful or repulsive, 
is a manifestation of the One Life, than which 
there is no other. Love is cognizant of the di- 
vine essence within every form; beholding all 
nature as "a projection of God into the uncon- 
scious," returning by slow stages and gradually 
refining forms, unto its Source and Self. Love 
looks upon no distorted countenance of a fellow- 
being in which it does not see the features of 

52 



the one Beloved. Love reverently touches every 
stained hand of humanity as a hand of God ; 
trusts every human heart as the living sanctuary 
of the Deific Presence, whose glory and power 
must presently shine forth until it shall have 
obliterated all the appearance of vileness and 
impurity which were indications that this child 
of the Highest had not yet come to know him- 
self. Love sees him as what he is. Truly saith 
that great prophet of the Soul, "He who is in 
love, is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly 
every time he looks at the object beloved, draw- 
ing from it with his eyes and his mind those 

virtues which it possesses And the 

reason why all men honor love is because it looks 
up and not down; aspires and not despairs." 

4. Love is the recognition of our true rela- 
tionship with one another. It sees that, all life 
being of one texture, woven of threads so in- 
extricably interlaced that no one could be with- 
drawn and remain whole; that no one could be 
injured and the material not be marred ; that all 
life being the manifestation of one substance 
and force, of which each being is but a small 
fragment or expression ; that all life, as one vast 
sea of Being, but swirls itself into eddies here 

53 



and there, which we know as individuals; — so 
the interests of one of these individuals are the 
interests of all. My brother's needs are my 
needs. My brother's growth or retardation of 
growth is mine. He may not be wounded or 
cramped or hindered in any way and I not 
be, also. My enrichment is his, or it is 
but a visionary gain that I see as hav- 
ing come into my hands, and I am still 
"poor and blind and naked." Not that love 
in its infant stirring within us always beholds 
this emancipatory truth in its entirety, for that 
would be the consummation towards which, as 
yet, we only tend. But all the sweet sympathies 
and tender compassions and noble sacrifices and 
acts of brotherly helpfulness, that beautify and 
lift up our common life, all the voices that are 
staunchly heralding the coming of a better day 
in politics and industry and the whole life of 
society, all the heroic efforts to usher in that 
day; — these betray the truth that we are near 
the time of a larger and truer vision of our re- 
lations with one another and with the universe. 

5. But there is a yet deeper and more vital 
sense in which we may understand that love is 
of the very essence of God. It is the will to 

54 



serve without reward; it is the perception of the 
infinite worthiness of every being it could serve; 
it sees that serving one is serving the whole, of 
which itself is a part; but it is more than a per- 
ception, or an act following an intuition. It is 
a movement of nature itself. Life tends to con- 
centrate, to return toward the Center whence 
it was projected, that it might by seeming sepa- 
ration, and the path of individual consciousness, 
voluntarily pass into universal consciousness. 
And that all the affections and attractions by 
which husband and wife, parent and child, 
friend and friend, are irresistibly drawn together 
are the instinctive motions of this one nature 
that has produced affinities only that they may 
unite. All the sweet acts of love, gradually be- 
coming purer, freeing themselves from the de- 
cay and dross of selfishness, rising to the knowl- 
edge and height of their own nature — these are 
the more or less intelligent and voluntary ef- 
forts to "do by knowledge what the stones do 
by structure." Love is the longing for home; it 
is the effort to reach home. It is the homing 
instinct that clasps to its breast all its own, and 
later knows as its own all the manifestations of 
this one great, wedded parental, brotherly, filial 

55 



life. Love is the constructive, welding, fusing 
power that works throughout nature. Love, the 
very life of God, is, in the world, the process of 
reunion in that Life which is in all and is all. 

VI 

THE WILL TO LOVE 

Love, being the current of life, rushing with 
a great, silent, irresistible force toward its cen- 
ter, the Primal Energy that flows through all the 
forms of its own creation, gathering up and 
transmuting all the particular energies of each 
individual, through which it has striven to ex- 
press itself — must, in the time of sufficient ripe- 
ness of the understanding, make itself known 
and obeyed as the highest law. Willing obedi- 
ence thereto is the blessed destiny of every one 
of its children. But ages and accumulations of 
experience beyond human computation, form 
the process by which Nature guides the infant 
soul, freeing itself from the weights, vestiges 
and decays of selfishness and error, and coming 
to hold in its crystal purity, the one great pur- 
pose of life, to live only in the universal interest 
that holds the welfare of each as dear as that 
of every other. Every now and then, in this 

56 



long process of the unfolding of the true life 
and power of the soul, a gleam breaks on the 
inner sight, revealing the apparently distant 
height toward which we tend, and also the possi- 
bility that the strong, quick spirit may overleap 
in one supreme effort all the weary distance, 
may discount all the toilsome up-hill and down, 
extract the significance of it all, and pass swiftly 
to a point of knowledge and power that over- 
looks the care and sorrow and striving that 
otherwise were his lot. A sense of wings be- 
comes his and for a brief moment he breathes 
the upper air. Alas ! that the faith is so poor, 
the will so weak that he sinks back again and 
creeps, and thinks he must creep, and almost en- 
joys the creeping. The celestial radiance so 
fades, he almost doubts whether he ever caught 
the supernal ray. He goes on trying to mix the 
transcendent perfume of love, whose very 
nature is pure benevolence, with the fumes of 
his own desires, an experiment which is doomed 
from the beginning to unmitigated failure. 

O, man ! hearken to the voice of Wisdom that 
speaketh to thee a new and living message. The 
great words* with which it smites thine ear bear 
the intelligence of the truth that thy faith is not 

57 



small, thy will not weak; that the fairy gleam 
which broke upon the night of thine ignorance 
and wilfulness was a ray from the sun of an 
eternal day. It is not necessary, it is not meet, 
that thou shouldst grovel and strive and distress 
thy soul with all these cares and efforts to get 
and to hold that which is not lasting or real, and 
that will not satisfy, even when thou dost possess 
it for a brief season. All that thy poor young 
hands reach out for will perish in their grasp 
and the desire shall pass beyond them, yet unful- 
filled. Thou didst see truly in the mount of 
vision. The place of power is where thou hast 
divested thyself of all thy personal desires, thy 
private interests, washed them away, once and 
forever, in the purifying, life-giving tide of the 
great purpose to give; to give without thought 
or wish for reward; to give as the sun and air 
and rain, as the mountains and flowers give; as 
all strong and beautiful things of nature give; — 
to give as the great God we have conceived of, 
gives; — freely, largely, unquestioningly, imparti- 
ally, untiringly ; to pour out the life in the great 
joy of giving. Thy salvation, the salvation of 
the universe lies in this, that thou shalt give all. 
Arise in thy might! thou canst do it, for it is 

58 



what thou art. Thou hast found the "pearl of 
great price," thy life, thy destiny, thy God, thy- 
self, in the Will to Love. 

But after the sacred joy of the great solemnity 
in which this once-for-all consecration is made, 
there must be, day by day, and hour by hour, — 
truly moment by moment, — in the attitude of 
the mind, if not in the conscious action, — the 
continual, strenuous putting- forth of the will to 
love, in all the relations, actions, transactions 
and functions of the interior and exterior life. 

We must train the mind to love — to think of 
no object or person or event or relationship, 
with any consideration of any possible gain that 
is to come to self by means of it. To keep the 
thoughts free from any taint of disdain of any 
lowliest or meanest or most repulsive object or 
action; to consider that the quality that causes 
the physical or moral shiver on our part, is but 
a temporarily concentrated and abnormal ex- 
pression of energy which may be turned into 
the divinest channels. To pronounce even in 
the silent court of our own most secret thoughts, 
no judgment, no condemnation of any sin of any 
soul, that is not also a recognition of that soul's 
divine nature and possibilities, and an aspiration 

59 



and determination for that soul, that he shall 
leave the sin that is not his and attain to the 
holiness that is his own. Above all, we must 
train the mind's eye to look at the eternal beauty 
of the Invisible with such firm resolve that its 
outlines shall daily grow clear and true, and 
no material landscape shall be more defined for 
us than the pure realm of Principle. 

We must train the heart to love. Having dis- 
engaged our minds from the confusion caused 
by the false premise, that affection is love, we 
shall no longer be troubled by the query 
whether it be possible for us to love all men as 
we love those whom, according to the flesh or 
the choice of congeniality, we call our own. We 
shall be able to gather, as never before, all the 
dear sweetness and tender loveliness of the 
natural affectional relations, when we regard 
these precious souls as in no sense our own, ex- 
cept as they and we are expressions of the great 
Life that brought us into this nearness to one 
another, that thus we might learn more quickly 
and thoroughly the details of the supreme les- 
son. Then first do I love my child when I see 
him as Life's child and become to him a chan- 
nel of Life's purifying, upbearing force. And 

60 



understanding that love is not the pleasure of 
possession, even of the noblest heart on earth, 
or of the sweetest affections of that heart; that 
love is not the delight of being held close in a 
tender embrace, or held high in the apprecia- 
tion and estimation of the friend whose opinion 
seems to us of the greatest value; but that it is 
that divine sympathy by which we may pass over 
into the life of every child of God, recognize 
that one as another self, whose needs and wel- 
fare are as important as our own, or those of 
the one for whom we feel the greatest respon- 
sibility; — we may become true lovers, heart-lov- 
ers of the race r a divine enthusiasm glowing and 
burning within us, making of the life a great, 
hospitable hearth, at which shall be warmed and 
lighted many naked and shivering souls, who 
shall go forth cheered and clad in the knowledge 
of their own divine heritage, the holy fire having 
become kindled in their bosoms, also. 

We must train all the faculties to love. The 
voice and the hand must become love's own in- 
struments. He who would beat all "swords into 
ploughshares," must remember that the tongue 
may be the sharpest of two-edged swords. Why 
should the tongue or pen be considered the most 

61 



effective when used as weapons of warfare? 
Say, rather, that they are instruments to be used 
for the edification of all that is high and noble, 
and that will by reason of its own existence 
make obsolete all that is lower or poorer. The 
true artist criticises only "by creation." The 
work of the lover is purely constructive. 

When we plant vineyards that our brothers 
may be fed, when we build cities that they may 
be the habitations of brothers, when all the ex- 
penditures of capital and labor are sacraments 
of love, when our lines of commerce bear only 
messages and gifts of lovers, then shall we rea- 
lize the permeating glory of the Will to love, 
which is not only the blessed privilege, but the 
whole duty of man. 

Let us strengthen our faith, reassure our 
hearts, and reinforce our faltering resolutions, 
with the knowledge that by nature are we consti- 
tuted lovers, that the possibilities of the human 
will are limitless because it is an expression of 
that Omnipotent Will by which the worlds were 
called into being and the universal order is pre- 
served; that when we will to love, we set the 
individual will in line with the highest law, Ave 
strike a melody that loses itself in the symphony 

62 



of life. Thus the soul passes into her native 
realm, which is "wider than space, older than 
time, high as hope. . . . Pusilanimity and 
fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn; they 
are not for her who putteth on her coronation 
robes and goes out through universal love to 
universal power." 

VII 

THE MOST HIGH GOD 

There is a beatitude that encloses our high- 
est aspiration. It is an ineffable light that ban- 
ishes all our conceptions of darkness. It is the 
shining of a soft brilliance that comes from no 
central body, but is pervading and intrinsic. In 
its complete purity the individual soul is bathed, 
until he passes into, and becomes one with, its 
crystal clearness. Beyond this perfect trans- 
parency there is naught to be seen, for it con- 
tains, and is, full satisfaction for the eye that 
is open to behold it. It is the Perfect Intelli- 
gence that holds all objects of Knowledge as the 
children of its own creation. It is the Pure Joy 
that precedes, encloses, and is the goal of all the 
alternations of pleasure and pain. It is the end 
or completion of Love, in that it is the realiza- 

63 



tion of that identity of nature that discovers no 
more parts to be united. It is the Omnipotence 
that creates forms and raises and refines them 
into unobstructed power. It is somewhat more 
than the stilling of all personal desires, for it 
sees desire as existing only when this perfection 
is not realized. Not that desire is in itself any 
unholy thing; it is but the token of an incom- 
plete state of consciousness, the beholding of 
some manifestation or intimation of the Univer- 
sal Good as a separate good, and distinct from 
the would-be possessor; conjoined with the in- 
stinctive movement of nature that unites itself 
with all good that it can perceive. It becomes 
harmful only when it emphasizes that separate- 
ness and would, for the attainment of this one 
pitiful portion, exclude all else ; and when it be- 
comes regardless of the equal right of all divine 
souls; when the false conception "mine" takes 
on an excluding significance which in nowise 
belongs to it. But, in the light of this nearness 
of Pure Truth, it is known that there is nothing 
to desire, that not only is there the complement 
of every faculty and capacity, that each has been 
met and wedded by each, but that, in a higher 
reality, there was no parting. 

64 



It is possible for the individual soul to reach 
up, to unclose its eyes unto the soft smiting of 
this celestial radiance, to pass into and enclose 
itself within, to know itself one with, this all- 
encompassing Perfection. 

That at times this transcendent experience has 
come into many lives, we know, from the testi- 
mony of souls every here and there, who, in 
connection with many different formulations of 
religious conception, have, through sacrifice, 
meditation, and loving service, passed into wide- 
ly-acknowledged sainthood. And added to these 
are the words of many humble followers of the 
pure gleam, who have, in obscure lives of sweet 
patience and faithfulness, stumbled, as it were, 
upon the spring which has opened an otherwise 
unseen door into this realm of unmixed, celestial 
beauty. 

That it is our destiny to refuse to remain con- 
tent with these glimpses, and to become ab- 
sorbed, translated into this Fullness of Life — in 
no sense losing ourselves, but finding all that is 
high and true and permanent in self — this we 
know with a solemn certitude that is past the 
power of argument to confirm or refute. 

On our way thither there are various stages 

65 



in the knowledge of God through which all of 
us, perhaps, have passed or must pass. 

There is first the time when we conceive of 
Him as outside of ourselves. This state of de- 
velopment has its own degrees and progressions. 
From doubts as to whether this extraneous 
Power is not sometimes antagonistic to, and sub- 
versive of, our interests, we come by the paths 
of many observations, experiences and intui- 
tions, to revere, to trust, to love, to claim kin- 
ship with, to regard as "Father," this more or 
less clearly perceived Authority. The point at 
which we can, with all sweet and glad and un- 
questioning trust, look into this Father's loving- 
face, with hearts full of responsive, filial love, is 
high and true; and I would bid any young soul 
to tarry there until he has built into himself all 
that is of value and beauty in this conception. 
The essence of the trust thus generated lays hold 
on the real, and may be carried over without a 
break into the sublime atmosphere of the higher 
knowledge, "I and my Father are one." But 
not always can this be done. Sometimes there 
must be a soul-trying hour when all that seemed 
so true and real fades, crumbles, slips from our 
grasp, and our hands and lives seem empty and 
sunless for a while. 



66 



The lower stages of a higher development 
often seem depressed below the greatest heights 
attained by the estate of nature or thought that 
is really more primary; for example, the lowest 
animal organizations appear much farther from 
completion and beauty than many expressions of 
vegetable life that well-nigh approach perfec- 
tion in their own way. But the power of will 
that is revealed in even the very slightly organ- 
ized creatures of the lowest classes of the animal 
realm, admonish us that here is another and 
higher type of life. Thus as we pass from the 
conception of a God without ourselves to the 
understanding that all the power that exists is 
resident within us, — and yet do not perceive 
this power as infinite and eternal Intelligence, — 
it often appears a fall into materialistic dark- 
ness. In the place of a personal God we have 
only impersonal laws and force, and a certain 
high element is lost out of our universe of con- 
ception, which leaves us the dreary feeling that 
we are poor, bereft "orphans of nothing." Yet 
the very fact of our being thus flung upon our- 
selves, is a condition from which there is likely 
to grow a larger conception of truth. "When 
we have broken our god of tradition, and 

67 



ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God 
fire the heart with His presence." But that glow 
may not be kindled until there has been many a 
sturdy, conscience-strong act of self-depend- 
ence, of loyalty to the right for right's own sake, 
that recks not of a past nor a future and recog- 
nizes no height of being except goodness. Let 
us render a true and tender respect to any soul 
we may chance to meet who is passing through 
this stage of development, — who sees naught 
which he feels he can justly call God, and yet 
worships God by the integrity and cleanliness of 
his life. His lesson at this stage is a far harder 
one than that of him who has a God, whether 
it be a God on authority, or a God of his own 
finding. 

But this is no permanent tarrying place. 
When the power of vision grows strong enough, 
we see a larger and better truth. We see the 
God of all intelligence, wisdom and purpose, 
finding his being in and through all manifested 
life; God in the sod, in the plant, in the animal, 
in the man, groaning, sorrowing, toiling, groping 
his way back unto his own. We dare to say, 
"God is in me ; all of my tears are God's tears ; 
all of my pains are God's pains ; all of my expe- 

68 



riences of every sort are God's experiences; all 
of my aspirations are the upreachings of the 
Holy Spirit within, toward the Eternal Bliss 
that is His own high estate." And little by little 
we come into the exercise of the confidence and 
patience and hope and love that we feel are the 
virtues growing in the soil of the divine nature 
within us. We will listen to the divine voice, we 
will trust the divine wisdom that is within, we 
will let the divine compassion flow through us; 
we will be channels for the vigorous outpush of 
the divine energy, and even the physical being 
shall, if possible, form no obstruction to the full 
expression of the Divine Will. The God within, 
the God we are, shall, by our consecration and 
effort, grow, as speedily as may be, toward His 
own heights of glory and power. We have 
taken a great step onward when we thus identify 
ourselves with the God that is our own true life, 
the God that is in the world and is the world, 
and that moves with ceaseless and certain step 
onward and upward toward the supreme and 
perfect bliss in which the "One without a sec- 
ond" is alone known. There are untold depths 
and reaches of wealth and beauty, of experience 
and potentiality, within the zones girded by these 

69 



great thoughts, and we must tarry here for long, 
or return again and again, to garner up and in- 
corporate into the character, all of these name- 
lessly vast riches. Something of this growing, 
giving, toiling God, we must ever know and be, 
until all of manifested life shall have found its 
full redemption; for no soul can attain perfec- 
tion until all souls are with him, for he is but a 
portion of the great, common life. 

But there comes a time when a soul knows 
that he may, at least at intervals, pass to a 
greater height than even this fine, pure earnest- 
ness and exalted purposef ulness ; that he may 
pass beyond the confines of even this conscious- 
ness of his own divine nature and destiny, up 
through all the potentialities of life in every 
form, into that Infinite that transcends them all. 
His highest consciousness is no longer that of 
being a part of an evolving, divine world, a trav- 
ailing, divine humanity, but of being one with 
the Eternal, "the same yesterday, today and for- 
ever." The finite, "which toils and suffers," 
passes almost into the shadow of forgetfulness 
and there remains only the Infinite "stretched in 
smiling repose," there shines only the perfec- 
tion of unobstructed, nightless day. His "eyes 

70 



are holden" that he may not become sightless 
with the great glory. If he reasons about it, he 
will say that he knows that, compared to the 
endless powers that he is conscious are opening 
in and from him, on every side, he now is able 
to catch but the most infinitesimal glimpse. But 
he knows that it has been given him to behold 
The Most High God. 

Henceforth all the objects and experiences of 
life, shrunken and shrivelled into unseemly in- 
significance, must, if they are to exist at all, be 
lifted up and receive the revivifying touch of a 
new meaning and dignity which this light alone 
can give them. From that height the soul looks 
down on the world-process with the interest of 
complete certitude. He sees the end so clearly 
that all steps toward it, however feeble or halt- 
ing or slow they may appear, are beheld through 
the medium of a joyous and moveless confidence. 
He sees his own personality as but a small por- 
tion of the whole, of no more importance than 
any other, and he looks at it with precisely the 
same interest he feels in all others. It is being 
moulded and guided by the great beneficence 
and wisdom that pervade it and all else; it is 
animated by so much of the Universal Spirit as 

71 



it gives place to; and the freed soul, no longer 
that personality, but only a dweller in, or with 
it, for purposes of utility, is glad of every expe- 
rience of every sort, that shapes it into a truer 
channel for the onflowing of the divine life. He 
is content with life's work. He is one with the 
Worker. He is enwrapped and filled with an un- 
ending serenity. Yet his ministry has no chill of 
indifference. It is the touch of infinite tender- 
ness, of deific efficiency. He is one with his 
fellows as he could not be until he rose above 
them .and himself, and knew himself and them 
as one with their Source and Purpose. 

To voluntarily rise to this height is the priv- 
ilege and duty of every soul. To have entered 
into the wonder of this Ineffable Beauty but 
once, is to have seen the way of life. To abide 
in it is to have passed from death unto life. 



72 



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